Educational blog articles around inbound marketing.

How to Create Shareworthy Content Using Photos from Shutterstock

People are visual creatures by nature. We gravitate toward beauty, symmetry, and color at an unconscious level--so deep a level, in fact, that we hardly realize the effect a powerful image can have on us.

That's one of the reasons you'll often hear sentiments such as "a picture is worth a thousand words". Although great content needs informative text, pairing that text with quality images is just as important.

Pictures: Hidden in Plain Sight

Pictures, upon first glance, might not seem like a very important aspect of content creation. They might only seem essential for certain types of content, but a well-placed image can enhance even the most serious of content, giving it the gravity and context it needs to make its point.

In fact, once you start to examine the role that great images play in the presentation of your message, you'll see that the perfect image is a crucial aspect of all great web content.

The Never-Ending Battle for People's Attention

For better or worse, the general population's attention span is significantly shorter than it once was. Today, mobile devices have enabled us to be in contact with virtually our entire social circle, all the time.

Why do we bring this up? Because this is the group of people you are trying to reach. That's why it's important to create content that captures your audience's attention and provides stimulation and variety for your readers, viewers, or even your potential clients.

If you're creating content, you had better be quick, to-the-point, and memorable; if your content isn't worth remembering, who will share it?

Becoming a Master of Media

Like it or not, fewer people read blog posts comprised of walls of text. Huge paragraphs without images can be overwhelming for readers and cause them to click away.

Think about it this way: you're sharing online media. Consider what types of media will resonate with your audience and evoke emotion and engagement.

Why You Need Images Alongside Your Content

"Wait a minute," you might still be saying, "I'm a pretty good blog writer! Why should I use up valuable space on a bunch of silly pictures?" If this is you, you have a valid question, but potentially the wrong attitude when it comes to content creation. Let's break it down a little bit...

We're pretty sure that you've heard the phrase "a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down"? Well, in this case, let's think of the "medicine" as the content you've written. The pictures, as you've probably guessed, represent the sugar.

Sure, a photograph won't necessarily represent or convey any of the deeper substance of your article; properly chosen, however, they can breathe life into an article that isn't possible with words alone.

Even in the heyday of newspapers, there existed a principle known as the "dollar bill rule": if one laid a dollar bill across a newspaper, it should never rest only upon text. There should always be graphics.

Why High-Quality Images Are a Must

Presently, the world has more visual stimulation than it ever has, between mobile devices, computers, televisions, and various social networks, people see countless images throughout the day.

Quite simply, if you want your content to stand out from the rest of the pack, you need high-quality graphics.

If you've ever worked in an office (or nearly anywhere, for that matter), you've probably gotten accustomed to seeing the same generic clip-art and stock images in nearly every PowerPoint presentation you've had to sit through.

You've seen these low-quality illustrations and standard stock photos of smiley people shaking hands so many times that they probably fail to register in your brain. That's exactly the kind of image you don't want to place in your content.

When you want to create shareworthy content for a blog or a social media network, you can't afford to use bland, blase stock images.

You want graphics that not only illustrate your points, but more importantly, add value to your post rather than take it away.

Why Choose Shutterstock for Your Photos?

Shutterstock is an excellent option for anybody who wants to create fun, shareable content. Bloggers, content creators, and more can use the huge and ever-expanding database to find the image that says the perfect "thousand words".

Intuitive Database

Shutterstock's search feature represents a vast improvement over other stock photography databases, which often lack any real specificity.

You've probably noticed that even many of the expensive stock photo providers have disorganized or confusing databases.

No "Disappearing" Content

Using a trusted source like Shutterstock means never having to worry about your pages being disrupted due to copyright issues.

You've probably seen plenty of blog posts that look like hollow shells, because they're primarily comprised of photos, graphics, or YouTube videos that have been removed.

When it comes to your website, remember: image is everything. Content with gaping holes that were once filled by pictures not only looks unprofessional, it essentially looks unreadable.

New Photos Every Day

Some stock photo companies seem content to rest on their own laurels, only updating their selection of photographs every so often despite customer requests.

Don't get saddled with an outdated collection of images. Shutterstock keeps their stock photos fresh so your content never seems stale.

Closing

Those are just a few reasons that you should choose Shutterstock for your stock photo needs, but to really understand why they're the best, you'll have to try them out for yourself.

I hope you found this information beneficial and feel free to comment down below any thoughts or questions you may have.

ZioSolutions is an Inbound Marketing, Website Design, and Sales Enablement Agency. Founded in 2015 by Zachary Raineri and Geoff King, ZioSolutions is proud to be located in St. Louis, Missouri and active in helping others achieve marketing and sales success.